


Staring at the Ceiling

by nerigby96



Category: Martin and Lewis
Genre: Awkwardness, Fluff, M/M, Partnership, Play Fighting, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Boys, Summer, Surprise Kissing, Teasing, Tickle Fights, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 04:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerigby96/pseuds/nerigby96
Summary: 1946. Dean wakes one summer afternoon and reminisces about last night's show.





	Staring at the Ceiling

The afternoon sun gently prises sleep from Dean’s grasp. With a grunt, he shifts to his left side, buries his face in the pillow. He allows himself a little time to wake up, to remember where he is, to adjust to the sunlight. Then he turns his head to the window and eases open his eyes.

They forgot to draw the curtains. Well, it was late (early, actually, near four o’clock) and Jerry had some _romantical_ idea of watching the sun rise together, but the second his ass hit the mattress, he was as good as gone. He groggily allowed Dean to undress him to his shorts, mumbling all the while. His unintelligible remarks were posed as questions, conversational, so Dean answered them with innocuous nothings.

Now, Dean lies on his back, one hand behind his head, the other resting on his stomach. It’s hot today; they've both slept nearly nude upon the covers.

He closes his eyes. He stretches his toes like a cat, and thinks back to last night. Business as usual, except Jerry threw in something new. It broke up the joint, and Dean can admit now that it was a clever addition, but at the time he was simply glad he carried it off.

In the middle of his usual shtick - throwing himself around the stage, interrupting Dean, generally making a fool of himself – Jerry went a little further. Suddenly, Dean found himself nose-to-nose with the kid. Jerry's eyes were frantic, sparkling. Maybe even he had no idea how far he could go. The audience screamed.

Jerry stared into Dean’s eyes, panting. The older man wet his lips and said, “I have finally come to the point in our relationship where I am going to have to tell you, if you do that again, it's _over_. Do you understand that? O-V-U-R!”

Jerry beamed, closed the hair's breadth, and kissed him.

“I understand _perfectly_.”

Lying here now, Dean is rather pleased with himself. As far as the audience was concerned, he didn’t do anything. But that’s exactly it. If Dean got mad or pulled away, the bit would fall flat. By doing nothing, he sold it.

A part of him wonders if in future shows the kid will let him know in advance, but another part of him – a smarter part, a part that’s already tuned to the kid’s wavelength – knows he won’t.

Something tickles his right side. He glances toward it, sees Jerry’s long index finger tracing lines, zigzags, circles on Dean’s flesh. He tilts his head, watching the fingertip's meandering progress. Despite this exploratory digit, Jerry's eyes are closed.

“You awake?” Dean asks. “Or gettin’ fresh in your sleep?”

Jerry laughs, pulling it back in his throat so it squeaks. “You wish, Dean Martin.” But his finger doesn’t stop.

It’s a strange sensation, not exactly unpleasant. Dean doesn’t have the word for it. It tickles a little and sends goosebumps rippling across his skin. The finger moves further in, and Jerry extends the others. He rests his palm on Dean's belly, which rises and falls with calm and measured breaths. Dean stares at the ceiling. He wants a cigarette. 

So he takes Jerry’s hand away and lays it on the mattress between them. He lets his own fingers rest on the kid’s, just for a second, and then turns to the bedside table. He lights up, sits up, legs out and ankles crossed, staring out at the sun and the sky and the clouds and the birds, puffing meditatively, not thinking about the kid's long fingers.

"Hey, Paul," he says. Dean doesn't remember when the kid started calling him that. Can't even think when he told him his middle name. But he doesn't mind. "Can you pass me one?"

Without thinking, eyes fixed on the window, Dean takes the cigarette from his lips and holds it out to the kid. He feels cool fingers brush his hand, leaving it empty. Dean yawns and stretches every inch of his six foot frame. He sighs, scratches his chest. Finally, he looks at Jerry.

The kid is sitting up, legs tucked underneath him. He holds the cigarette loosely. His mouth hangs open.

"What?"

"Huh?" The kid snaps to attention, colour rising in his cheeks. "I didn't do nothin'!"

Dean chuckles. "Glad to hear it. You forget how to smoke?"

Jerry looks bashful. "I just like holdin' it." He smokes it, though, and hands it back.

Dean puffs once then stubs it out in the ashtray. He frowns at Jerry. "You know, we gotta do something about that."

"'Bout what, Paul?"

"_That._" He points at Jerry's hair. The kid has taken to slicking it with pomade, adding at least two inches to his already tall frame. Now his 'do is askew, thanks to the hours it has spent shoved into a pillow.

Jerry pouts. "You don't like it."

"You _do_?"

"I spend a lotta time on it!" he protests, only half joking. He really does take pride in it, God knows why.

"I know that," Dean says reasonably. "But all it does it attract flies. Makes me feel like I'm workin' with a corpse."

"Listen, buddy," says Jerry, "flies or not, we need audiences, and I'll take what I c'n get!"

Dean throws back his head and laughs. When he looks back at Jerry, he sees the kid is positively beaming.

But his gaze is drawn again to that hair. He shakes his head, bemused. "You should let me cut it, keep it short. There's better things to waste your time on, Jer."

"_Waste?_" He sucks air through his nose, and before Dean's eyes transforms into a neglected housewife. "I spend hours and hours trying to look good for you, and _this_ is how you treat me? Oh, I can hardly stand it." He throws himself on to his stomach, feet by Dean's head.

Dean laughs. Quite without thinking, he tickles the pale soles.

"Yow!" Jerry's on his knees, quick as a flash. "Don't do that," he says. "You'll be disqualified."

"Ah, you're too sensitive."

"Oh, yeah?" A sly look creeps into his eyes. "_I'm_ sensitive?"

"Jer—”

Jerry grabs Dean's legs and pulls, leaving him sprawled out on his back. He leaps at Dean, attacking every inch of exposed flesh with his fingers. Dean cries out as Jerry mounts a tickle offensive, cackling with delight. Dean tries to move, but Jerry straddles him, trapping him between bony knees. His fingers set to work on Dean's armpits, his neck, and Dean explodes with laughter. He pants and squirms and begs, but Jerry doesn't give.

"Teach you ta mess wit' _me_!"

Even as he struggles, Dean reaches out to the other side of the mattress. His fingers grope, twitching with the force of Jerry's assault, and then close on the soft object he seeks.

He swings the pillow at Jerry's head. The kid yells, knocked off balance, and Dean grabs his arm and pulls, rolling with the motion. He's on top now, literally. He pins Jerry's arms and sits on his legs.

"So who's sensitive?" asks Dean.

"Me, me!" cries Jerry, tears streaming down his face, struggling to speak for laughing.

"Say uncle?"

"Uncle, uncle! You win!"

"Fuckin' right."

Jerry looks at him. His laughter tapers off to awkward chuckles, and then he's just staring. He wets his lips and swallows. He makes a noise in his throat and turns his head away.

Dean frowns. Then he realises. Jerry was playing; it was all in fun. Now here's Dean Martin, nearly ten years his senior, pinning him to the bed. An image comes unbidden to his mind: someone being called to investigate the racket they must have made, and the door bursting open to reveal two men in their underwear, panting and sweating. He shoves the thought aside and focuses on Jerry. He feels like an idiot, getting riled up like that. Must have made the kid uncomfortable.

_Kid?_ he thinks. _He's 20 years old, Dino._ Still, it's difficult to see him that way. He's gangling and nutty and full of childish ideas. Childish ideas like, Dean thinks, a tickle fight.

Dean rolls away, on his back again, staring at the ceiling. They lie there in silence save for each other's breaths and the odd unintelligible shout from outside. Dean hears a rustle on Jerry's side of the bed; the kid has turned over, half curled in on himself.

_Did I hurt him?_

"Jer?"

"Hm?"

He sighs, moves on to his side so he can talk directly to the kid's back.

"Sorry if I got a little rough, kid."

"Oh! Oh..." Jerry moves awkwardly. "'M fine."

Dean wonders if he should reach out and touch him, reassure him. Instead, he says, "We were great last night."

"Huh?"

"The show, Jer. You forget already?"

"Oh, right. Ohh..." He moans and covers his face.

"What'sa matter now?" More harshly than he plans, he adds, "Speak up or shut up."

"I'm sorry," Jerry says.

_Shit._

"No, it's... Don't worry. I'm just grumpy. Hot."

Jerry shrugs. "Open the window."

Dean shrugs. "'S too far away."

The kid giggles. He knows as well as Dean that in a room as small and cheap as this, either one of them could open the window without leaving the bed. But neither of them moves.

“Sorry,” Jerry says again. He rolls on to his back.

“Huh? What you got to be sorry for?”

“Well,” he says, “you know. The show.” He stares at the peeling paint above. “You ain’t mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

Jerry picks up the pillow Dean used to win his advantage and shoves it over his face. Muffled, he repeats: "You know.”

Dean knows. He thinks about the kiss again, how perfectly the kid timed it, the crowd’s hysterical reaction. It’s a little scary how smart this kid is.

“Look at me,” he says, the furthest thing from mad he has ever been.

The kid obliges, hugging the pillow and turning doleful eyes on his partner.

“That was a good show,” Dean says, and because he wants to reassure him – but isn’t entirely sure how to do that – he punches the kid lightly on the arm.

Jerry sighs, obviously relieved. He smiles sleepily; the game must have taken it out of him. Dean is shaken, briefly, by his youth. Then a mischievous glint enters those eyes. He grins.

_Oh, no._

In a flash, he pecks Dean’s lips. Then he flings himself back on the mattress in ecstasy. He giggles and writhes, covers his face in childish delight. Dean is dumbstruck. All he can think is that once the kid finds a bit he enjoys, he must really dedicate himself to it. In his stupefied state, he doesn't see that Jerry has slipped to the edge of the mattress. There is a split second, before disaster strikes, when his eyes widen, and he looks at Dean with true fear. Then he thuds to the floor, his legs tangled in the blanket.

“Shit, Jer?” Dean scrambles across the mattress.

Jerry is on his back. His cheeks flame scarlet, and his chest heaves.

“Shit, kid, you all right?”

Jerry’s eyes flick to Dean’s. He pouts.

“I made a boo-boo.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dean and Jerry's onstage exchange is lifted directly from 'Dean & Me: A Love Story' by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan.


End file.
